by Jean Stone
Kris’s eyebrows shot up. “Jackass?”
Maddie told her what had happened. “It’s interesting, though. The changes I’ve felt in myself. I’m thinking so much more clearly now. I even think I might ask Cody to come and work for the magazine.”
“Cody? The boy toy?”
“He’s a wonderful photographer. And a civilized, caring person. But don’t get me wrong. There will be no sex or anything. Aside from the great time he gave me, he’s a really nice person. I think he could teach Timmy a lot.”
“No sex?”
“No sex! Besides. I’ll never mix business with pleasure again.” Then she winked. “Well, not at first, anyway.”
It was good to see Maddie acting like herself again. Her old, lovable, Maddie self.
“But first,” Maddie added, “I have to put my life together the way I want.”
“Without your ex.”
“So much for wishes.”
Kris smiled. “Well … that brings me to some news myself.”
“News? What?” She leaned back on the pillow. “God, I’ve been so involved in my own problems I never even asked you how you made out in Khartoum.”
“I fell off a camel.”
Maddie laughed.
“But it worked out fine. The best part is, my baby is fine.” Kris turned the page in the photo album. “Oh, look,” she said, “here’s one of us with Betty Ann …”
“What did you say?”
“I said here’s a picture of …”
Maddie reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Don’t play games with me, Kris. What did you say about a baby?”
Kris could no longer hold back her smile. “Oh, girl, it’s really happening. I’m pregnant.”
“Oh, shit,” Maddie said, a huge grin spreading across her face. “Really? You? A baby?”
Kris nodded, then nodded again.
“I thought the in vitro didn’t …” Her eyes grew wide. Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, my God, Kris. Don’t tell me that Edmund … that the baby …”
“Afraid so. Kris Kensington is going to have Abigail Hardy’s husband’s baby. How’s that for a mouthful?”
“He’s not her husband, Kris. He’s her … widower.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe not.”
Silence fluttered in the room.
“Kris?” Maddie began, but Kris quickly raised her hand.
“No. Don’t even think about it.”
“You’re not going to tell him?”
“I don’t think so, Maddie. He’s trying to put his life back together. He has Sondra now. And her baby. They’ve been through so much …”
“But this baby is his, Kris.”
Kris stood up and went to the window. “It’s my baby, Maddie.”
“Kris, you must tell him.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t think he’d care to know. I slept with him a few times. Even though I’d stopped taking the pill before I went to L.A., I never dreamed this would happen. I really thought it was too late. But it’s not. It’s my dream come true, Maddie. My dream. Not Edmund’s. I can’t screw up his life any more than it already is.”
Kris turned around and faced the bed. “Besides. There’s one thing you’re forgetting. I’m not sure how Edmund would feel about having a child who was part black.”
Silence hung in the room.
“I never thought it bothered you,” Maddie said, “being half black.”
“Yeah, well …” Kris paused and lifted her head. That’s when Maddie saw her tears. “Maybe I’m just now realizing that it’s really okay. That I am who I am and that’s all that matters.” She lowered her head. “And maybe I’m more than a little ashamed that it’s taken me so long to finally get comfortable with it.”
“But Edmund …”
She raised her hand again. “No buts. Enough said.” She whisked her tears away. “And right now I’m starving. I haven’t eaten in about ten hours, and I’m going to raid the cafeteria. Can I smuggle something up for you?”
Maddie shook her head. “No eating or drinking after eight o’clock.”
Kris checked her watch. Eight-thirty. She looked back at Maddie, as if remembering why she was here, why they were both here. “Look at the album while I’m gone. They say laughter is a great healing tool.”
Maddie waited a full sixty seconds after the door closed behind Kris before she reached across the bed and picked up the telephone. No matter what Kris said, Maddie had learned in these past few days that life was just too damn short to play games.
Devon stepped into the elevator just as Kris was getting off.
“Fancy meeting you here,” he said.
“What are you doing here?”
“You said you’d be here all night. I thought you’d like some company.” It had been weeks since he’d seen her. Too many weeks. And Devon knew Kris well enough to know she needed him at last. She never would have called if she hadn’t.
“I’m headed for the cafeteria,” she said. “Care to join me?”
He knew he was right. By the sound of her voice and the lilt in her eyes, Devon knew that something was up.
In his wildest, most bizarre dreams—and God knew he’d had enough of them when it came to Kris—he would never have imagined the news that she broke over Diet Cokes and ham sandwiches at a formica table in a hospital cafeteria.
“I’m pregnant,” she said, so matter-of-factly she could have said it was spring and weren’t the daffodils in Central Park especially pretty this year.
A small piece of ham lodged in his throat. He gasped for breath. He tried to speak. “What?” The word came out in a crack. He gulped some soda; the chunk of ham slid down.
“It’s Edmund’s baby, Devon. I thought about lying to you and saying it’s from the in vitro. But it’s not. This is Edmund’s baby. Edmund’s and mine.”
Looking at his plate, Devon reached for his sandwich again. He did not want Kris to see his hands tremble or see the pain that had sprung to his eyes. “Well,” he said, “this is interesting. What are you going to do?”
“First, I’m going to ask if you and Claire would be godparents.”
In spite of himself, Devon felt tears well. He dropped the sandwich. “Oh, God, Kris.” He took her hand in his, her creamy-bronze hand inside his large black one. “What about Edmund? What are you going to tell him?”
“Nothing”
“Nothing?”
“Devon, I don’t know if you’ll understand. But there was something special between Edmund and me. I don’t want to ruin that memory. He has given me the one gift I wanted. I don’t want to ruin his memory, and I certainly don’t want to ruin his life.” She paused. “And don’t forget that this child—his child—will have African blood.”
“But it’s a white man’s child, too.”
“I hate to admit it, but once I thought that was important, that a white man’s child would fare better in the world than a black. I guess that’s because I had a load of insecurities about being part black that I never acknowledged.”
He studied her fingers, unable to meet her eyes. “Do you love Edmund?”
She hesitated. “Very much.”
“Then call me a romantic, but I think your child will fare well because he was conceived in love.”
“Like your kids. And Claire’s.”
He withdrew his hand. “Yes,” he said. He thought of their laughter, he thought of their love. Then he thought of Claire and realized he meant it. He did love his family, he did love his wife. “Well,” he added with a smile, “the jury’s still out on Jarrod.”
Together, they laughed.
Then he thought of another part of the problem. He picked up his sandwich and carefully added, “But perhaps it is best that Edmund not know. He may not share your feelings.”
But Devon had other reasons for thinking it was all for the best. If Kris had said she wanted to marry Edmund, he would be forced to tell
her about Mo Gilbert—that Devon had been pacing him all these months to track down Abigail, that he’d found her through phone records from Phoenix to Seattle, and that Abigail Hardy was alive and well.
He looked back to her now, studied her face, saw her joy. Then he faked a smile. “Honey,” he said with sincerity he knew would grow genuine at some point in time, when his loss was put to bed once and for all, “I’m very happy for you. And I can’t speak for Claire—women’s rights, you know—but I sure can speak for myself when I say I will be proud to be your baby’s godfather.”
And maybe—just maybe—the arrival of this child would finally end his obsession and he could truly be the friend that Kris wanted and deserved.
He took her hand again. She laced her inch-long acrylic fingernails through his fingers. He felt the warmth of her skin, the softness of her flesh. Then he thought about Claire and his three wonderful kids and let the big tears roll down his cheeks. Through them, his smile now was real.
The next morning Kris tried not to fix her eyes on Sophie, the woman who’d been forever positive and upbeat, who now paced from the window to the chair to the magazine rack and back again, eyes flicking to the clock, jaw set rigid.
“How long did they say?” she asked Kris for the fourth or fifth time in the past three hours, as though her eighty-two years had suddenly caught up with her in a rush and she’d become an old, old woman. “I wanted the boys to leave, to go to school. Do you think that was all right?”
Maddie’s twins had arrived early this morning with Sophie; she’d wanted them to see their mother in case …
“Yes, Sophie,” Kris said now, having decided somewhere in the past hours that she should call Maddie’s mother by her first name—Maddie’s aging mother who had so suddenly become the reflection of a vulnerable child. “Would you like me to get you some tea?”
Sophie stopped pacing and looked at Kris as if she had no idea what she meant.
“I’ll go,” Kris said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Kris was, she realized with some guilt, glad to get away from Maddie’s mother, glad to escape the nervous sparks that flooded the air like dust specks ignited by the sun. She walked down the long corridor toward the nurses’ kitchen, where they’d told her she was welcome to help herself. In the room, Kris leaned against the shiny white counter and closed her eyes.
It had been a long, long night. After Devon left she’d slept in the chair beside Maddie’s bed and awakened with a crick in her neck, an ache in her gut. In Maddie’s bathroom, she’d thrown up.
No sickness at all, she thought now, holding her hand to her still flat stomach and thinking it was weird that until she’d known she was pregnant, she’d felt terrific. She opened her eyes, sighed, and put the water on to boil.
She was glad she had come. Being there for Maddie—being “there” for anyone—was something new for Kris. She’d begun to realize more and more how she had spent her life; so isolated, always, it seemed, so alone. Even in a crowd of people, even in the throngs at bookstores surrounded by fans and those who claimed they “loved her,” Kris had been alone. Once she had needed it that way; once it had been the only way she could stay in control of her life and block out her pain. Things would be different now. She would be alone no more.
Dropping tea bags into styrofoam cups, Kris poured in the hot water. Time to get back, she commanded herself. Time to sit with Sophie and not think about Maddie who was sound asleep on a hard table in a cold operating room and didn’t know they were thinking about her at all.
With one cup in each hand, her eyes studying the liquid so it wouldn’t spill, Kris turned from the room and stepped into the corridor.
And smacked right into someone.
She hadn’t seen anyone coming.
The hot liquid splattered on her arms. She screamed. She dropped the cups. More liquid scorched her feet. “Shit,” she cried. “Shit. Shit.”
The man she’d run into bent down to help. As she leaned down to retrieve a cup, their heads almost collided.
“Kris,” he said quietly, “are you all right?”
She lifted her eyes, inches from his. She forgot about her burning skin. She forgot about Maddie and Sophie. She forgot about everything as she looked into Edmund’s eyes.
“Maddie called me last night,” he said, after they’d cleaned up the mess and stood alone in the kitchen. He raised his hands to her shoulders. “She told me not to come. She told me to wait until you got in touch with me. She only wanted me to know you were here … Kris …”
She couldn’t look at him. She stared at the third button down from his neck, the third button down from his neatly pressed collar. She found herself wondering if Sondra had ironed the shirt for him, now that the servants were all gone, now that he and Sondra were a family again.
“Kris,” he repeated. “Maddie said she thought you might want to see me.”
An ache flooded through her. She wanted to scream again. She wanted to run from the room. She wanted to kill Maddie, if Maddie didn’t die first.
“What is it, Kris? What’s wrong?”
She raised her chin and averted her eyes. She could not lie to him. She simply could not. “Nothing is wrong, Edmund,” she said steadily. “I’m pregnant, that’s all. I’m going to have your baby.”
He reached his hand under her chin, then tipped her face toward him. She blinked and finally looked into his eyes.
“You’re pregnant?” he asked. “My God, you’re really pregnant?” His mouth grew wide with a grin.
She knew her eyes were glistening; she knew they were about to overflow with tears.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
She chewed on her lower lip. “I only found out last week. I didn’t know …”
“I am happy,” he said. “I am so happy, I just can’t believe this. We are going to have my baby.”
“A baby who’s part black.”
“A baby who’s part mine. And part yours.”
This wasn’t the way it was supposed to turn out. Kris Kensington, once having decided she wanted to have a child, should have gone off, become pregnant by the nameless, faceless stud from UCLA, raised her child alone, the two of them, with no need for a man. That was how it would have happened in one of her books. That was how Lexi Marks would have handled it. Independent, strong, Lexi Marks.
Just as she was beginning to gain some resolve, Edmund drew her to him.
“I do believe I love you,” he whispered, stroking her hair. “You are the most remarkable woman I have ever known.”
The wave began somewhere deep inside her. Slowly it rolled to the surface; slowly the pressure unleashed. He loved her. He accepted her. Black and white, he loved her. Kris leaned into him and succumbed to his warmth, his love. And then she wept into his shoulder, safe in the knowledge that she would never again be afraid of who—and what—she genuinely was.
Outside, in the corridor, a brown-haired woman carrying a nondescript shopping bag stood quietly, listening near the kitchen door. Large sunglasses covered most of her face; a wide scarf was wrapped around her head. She stuffed her hands inside the pockets of her wool pea coat and disappeared into Maddie’s room, the empty room that waited for life—if any—to return.
Moments later she slipped from the room, alone, unburdened, and unnoticed.
• • •
Late in the afternoon, as the early spring sun began its descent beyond the horizon, the surgeon appeared in the waiting room and told Kris and Sophie that Maddie was in recovery, that she was doing just fine, and that the tumor had been blessedly benign.
September 1998
Abigail rested her feet on the railing of the front porch, tipped her head back, and closed her eyes to the setting sun. She was tired, so tired, and yet felt so good.
The inn had enjoyed an incredible summer, with each of the fifteen rooms booked every night and the dining room filled not only with inn guests but with tourists from the city as well. McKenna’s
Inn—as Abigail had renamed it—had become famous in one season: famous for its gourmet cooking, famous for its unique decor.
Even Joel’s daughter—sweet, cooperative, and friendly—had worked hard picking Abigail’s roses every day for all the guest rooms, and setting the tables for dinner. She did such a wonderful job that once Abigail had kissed her forehead in thanks. She didn’t know which of them had been more surprised.
Joel looked over now from his place on the comfortable glider. “It’s finally over,” he said wearily; “the summer people are gone.”
Abigail smiled. It had been right, she now knew, for her to return.
It had not been easy. Standing in the hospital corridor, hearing what she’d heard, her first reaction had been to attack Kris. Kris Kensington was going to give Abigail’s husband the baby that Abigail never had. And Abigail Hardy had wanted to kill.
But then, she’d looked down at the shopping bag she brought and thought about what was inside.
And then she thought of Betty Ann.
“By the time I am seventeen …” Betty Ann had written so long ago, “I will make sure that we are friends forever.”
So Abigail had not attacked Kris. She had not killed her. Instead she’d left the hospital, left New York.
She’d returned to the small island off Seattle, where it was too damn rainy and too damn cold, but where people treated her like they loved her and where they called her Sarah Appleton even though they knew that was not her name.
Louisa had phoned to say she’d heard from Kris, that Kris and Maddie had been stunned to find Abigail’s gift waiting in the hospital room—the gift that Abigail had set atop the photo album on the nightstand, the Cristal champagne bottle with the three small pieces of paper that lay at the bottom.
Kris had found a secret, safe place and had hidden the bottle away.
A few months after Maddie’s surgery, Louisa reported that Maddie had pulled a coup, had ousted Parker from Our World, and had regained the magazine for herself. Circulation was on the rise; advertising dollars were bound to follow.
Louisa had also heard from Harriet Lindley, who’d told her that L.C. Howard had finally given up the art world and women under age thirty. His new passion (“Can you believe it?”) was that young, good-looking boy named Grady.